


Who Hasn't Run Out (of His Last Bit of Breath)

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Prompt Fills 2018 [20]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 23:07:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14459832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: The evolution of Evan + Ronon into Evan/Ronon.Seasons 2-3.





	1. A Drowning Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the music comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Ronon Dex +/ any
> 
> Cause there is no such thing as a dying man  
> We're alive till the moment we're dead  
> And a drowning man is just a living man  
> Who hasn't run out of his last bit of breath  
> (Ben Caplan - Down to the River)"

When Ronon was a Runner, he’d realized he’d taken a lot of things for granted in his life. A comfortable bed. Clean running water. Clothes that fit and were repaired. Useful armor and weapons. Food that wasn’t either terribly raw or terribly overcooked. Effective medicine.  
  
Familiar faces.  
  
Besides Teyla, Sheppard, McKay, Weir, and Beckett, no one on Atlantis ever looked familiar, because Ronon had long stopped bothering to learn faces and names. For seven years he’d never met the same person twice. Familiar faces were something that happened to other people.   
Acquaintances were something that happened to other people.  
  
Friends were a luxury a Runner was never afforded.  
  
The first person whose face became familiar beyond the people who’d saved him from being a Runner was Major Lorne, partially because he hung around Sheppard a lot as his second-in-command, a combination of supporting officer, logistics officer, and personal secretary, judging by the number of forms he was always making Sheppard sign.  
  
But also Lorne was nice to Ronon. Would save him extras of desserts he knew Ronon liked, or a piece of a dessert Ronon wouldn’t have otherwise had the chance to try. Lorne always waved and smiled at Ronon when they crossed paths on their morning runs. He’d give Ronon an extra bottle of water when he encountered Ronon during weight time in the gym.  
  
Lorne gave Ronon paper and pens so he could write for himself, even though he didn’t know any Earth writing. (Lorne also gave Ronon a brightly-illustrated book that Ronon knew was meant for children, but it was useful for learning the Earth alphabet, or at least the one most of the expedition used. Lorne had inserted sticky notes with drawings on them of things Ronon had seen around Atlantis; the pictures beneath the sticky notes were inevitably things native to Earth that Ronon had never seen.)  
  
Lorne gave Ronon more clothes, too, clothes that actually fit, clothes that Ronon liked to wear, that were Satedan in style, didn’t make Ronon look too much like an Earther.  
  
After a while, Ronon realized that Lorne was pretty much everywhere on Atlantis (when he wasn’t offworld). Ronon could pick out six faces in a crowd. Three of them were his teammates. One of them was the man who’d taken the Wraith tracker out of him. One of them was the undisputed queen of Atlantis.  
  
And one of them was Lorne.  
  
Lorne, with his bright blue eyes, his sweet dimpled smile, his broad shoulders, his soft-looking dark hair.  
  
Lorne came to Ronon and the team’s rescue when they were held captive offworld. He and his team went searching for them when Aiden and his band kidnapped them. He was alongside Ronon and McKay and even sacrificed two of his men to try to help save Sheppard when he was turning into a bug. He was loyal to Sheppard even when Caldwell made things difficult for him because of it.  
  
And then they went offworld to help give Lorne the backup he usually gave them after Dr. Lindsey reported Lorne’s team had taken fire (and of course he’d sent her for help - and to safety).  
  
Ronon’s world went gray and distant when Sheppard knelt, used his knife to poke at a burnt corpse, and came up with Lorne’s dogtags.

Ronon’s grandfather had always told him that there was no such thing as a dying man.  
  
_We’re alive till the moment we’re dead._  
  
That had made no sense to Ronon, because he’d seen people die.  
  
He’d watched his grandfather’s dying moments.  
  
And then he’d joined the Satedan Defense Forces and realized his grandfather was right, because holding his comrades in his arms as they ran out of their last bits of breath did nothing to prepare him for the moment when they were gone.  
  
They were there - and then they weren’t.  
  
Lorne was  _gone._  
  
They went back through the Ring to Atlantis, and every single person Ronon saw was a stranger.  
  
Weir ordered Ronon and Teyla to keep hunting, searching, finding out what happened to Lorne and his team. When they found those bounty hunters offworld, the ones with pictures of Lorne and his team and other Atlantis personnel, Ronon hoped, hoped in a way he hadn’t since the first time Sheppard said Beckett could cut the Wraith tracker out of him.  
  
Ronon also realized that he owned no pictures of anyone important to him - not Melena or his grandfather or anyone from back on Sateda, not Sheppard or Teyla or McKay.   
  
No one noticed that, after the briefing with Weir, he kept the picture of Lorne.  
  
And then they rescued Lorne and Sheppard and everyone else who’d been taken, and color started to seep back into the edges of Ronon’s world. Ronon said little in the debrief, retreated to his quarters as soon as he could.  
  
He sprawled out on his bed and stared at the picture of Lorne. It wasn’t an especially good picture, clearly a candid shot of Lorne out on patrol or something offworld, carrying his P-90, wearing his uniform. The picture didn’t do him justice, didn’t capture the brightness of his eyes or the sweetness of his smile, his cute little dimples. But it was the only picture Ronon had of - anyone.  
  
Lorne’s face was the only one Ronon would never forget.  
  
Did he even really remember Melena’s face? Given silk and brushes, would he be able to recreate her image?  
  
His door chimed.  
  
Ronon set the picture down on the nightstand, crossed his quarters, opened the door with a swipe of his hand.  
  
Lorne was there on the other side.  
  
Whole and alive, wearing a t-shirt and jeans, he was beautiful.  
  
“Hey, I brought you some brownie.” Lorne held out a little plastic plate. “You weren’t at supper, so -”  
  
Ronon hadn’t been hungry, hadn’t realized supper had come and gone. He accepted the plate. “Thanks.”  
  
“No, thank you - and the other guys for saving us from becoming blood banks or something worse for the Genii.” Lorne grinned, his expression bright.   
  
Ronon really, really wanted to reach out and find out if his hair was as soft as it looked.  
  
But then Lorne waved - farewell, not a bid for attention - and stepped back from the door. “Enjoy!”  
  
And the door slid shut without Ronon making it.  
  
Right. Lorne was a natural Gene carrier. It was why the Genii had wanted him.  
  
Ronon wolfed down the brownie - it was delicious - and set the plate aside, and then he found the paper and pens Lorne had given him, and he started to draw. His grandfather. Melena. The other men in his unit.  
  
His mother.  
  
And Evan Lorne.


	2. A Dying Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the H/C comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne +/ Ronon Dex, when Evan is injured and hiding offworld he doesn't expect Ronon to come to his rescue."

Evan had gone through more intense SERE training than the majority of the Armed Forces simply because he’d been part of a combat air crew before he’d ended up at the SGC. He’d probably had to rely on his SERE training more often than the majority of the Armed Forces, because apart from Spec Ops guys - and even rarely for them - being captured was a once-in-a-career thing. For some guys it was career-ending.  
  
Being stuck in an alien jail cell was almost a joke at the SGC.  
  
Almost.  
  
Like the number of times Daniel Jackson had died.  
  
The underlying principles for making SERE training effective were to know when he was under stress (stabbed in the side; check), to acknowledge that stress and manage it (his ribs  _really fucking hurt_  and breathing hurt and really his whole body hurt, but he’d managed to construct an evasion shelter and unlike SERE training these Pegasus natives didn’t have tracking dogs, so; check), and to understand his limits so he didn’t do anything stupid (he really couldn’t walk far or move fast and it would be best if he hunkered down and hoped and prayed that Atlantis came for him).  
  
They’d taken everything from him but his clothes and his boots, so he was cold, tired, hungry, and very thirsty. They’d taken his watch, which meant he had no way to navigate back to the gate because his watch had a built-in compass. He didn’t know if this planet had regular or retrograde rotation, so he couldn’t navigate by the suns. He also didn’t know how long he’d been held captive, how long it had been since his team had escaped - if they’d even made it to the gate - and how long it was supposed to be till Atlantis’s next check-in.  
  
Evan had sacrificed his tank top to bandages, because his t-shirt wasn't great but it was better protection from the elements.  
  
His little evasion shelter was the only other protection he had. It wasn’t great either. In training he’d had basic supplies, but out here he was pretty much helpless. He’d managed to wrangle some logs and fallen branches into a low shelter, one he could only crawl into, had to lie down in. It was just big enough for him, and it would blend into the surroundings really well if his pursuers even picked up his trail. It was low enough that it’d be below his pursuers line-of-sight, and it was irregularly-shaped because nature didn’t really do straight lines.  
  
They wouldn’t find him before Atlantis did, he was pretty sure.

He’d done everything he could, while he was on the move - purposely altered his gait, made several large and sharp direction changes to make them doubt their understanding of his chosen course, left decoy tracks, doubled back on himself. He hadn’t dared to cross really rough terrain even though that would frustrate his pursuers, because he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have made it across that terrain.  
  
Damn those bounty hunters who the Genii had hired to capture him and any other Atlantis Gene-carriers. There was still a price on his head, and the Genii weren’t the only people in the galaxy interested in having a human light switch to operate whatever Ancient gizmos they’d dug up.  
  
The locals had had a picture of him. He wanted to find every single copy of that picture and destroy it.  
  
But for now he had to rest. Conserve his energy. Heal up a bit. Gather some strength to find water and food.  
  
Evan curled up in his shelter, dozing and shivering. That was probably from the blood loss. He was pretty sure he’d stanched the bloodflow - or it had stanched itself, blood drying and crusting over the makeshift bandage.  
  
He had no idea how Atlantis would find him, especially if the locals couldn’t (if the locals would even be cooperative about helping find him). If Sheppard’s team came, Sheppard and McKay would be in danger of being captured for the Gene too.  
  
Evan could only hope and pray that McKay had finally tuned the LSDs to locate the subcutaneous trackers every member of the SGC were outfitted with so they could be beamed aboard an orbiting spaceship with an Asgard beam.

Of all the ways he’d imagined dying, it wasn’t like this, empty-handed and pathetic on an alien planet. He’d be listed MIA. Without his tags, his mother, who hated that he was in the military anyway, would refuse to have a funeral for him. He hoped his teammates had made it back to Atlantis. They’d be safe. They could send for help. The locals couldn’t use their Genes for whatever nefarious plans they had.

So many things Evan still wanted to do before he died.

See his family again. See Earth again. See the Milky Way again. See Atlantis. See his teammates. See his own damn bed.

He’d wanted to fall in love, have a family of his own.

Who was he kidding? He was already in love.

Of course, he didn’t dare act on it, because regs.

But if he was dying, well, he could do it. No consequences. The right kind of smile, a hug, maybe even a kiss. Perhaps a soft, quiet truth:  _I love you, Ronon Dex._

Evan smiled, imagining Ronon’s beautiful face, and closed his eyes.

“Stay with me.”

Evan opened his eyes.

Ronon was peeking into his shelter. He reached out, shook Evan’s shoulder.

Pain exploded down Evan’s side again. His wound had reopened.

“Sorry,” Ronon said. He wriggled forward on his stomach, caught Evan under the armpits, and dragged him out of the shelter. “Got him!”

Evan clung to him, dazed. “Ronon?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it really you?”

“Yeah.”

“How did you find me?”

“McKay did it. Tracker thingie. Never thought anyone would be glad to have one of those.” Ronon’s arm across his back was warm, solid. 

He was pressed against Evan’s side. That hurt like the dickens, but Ronon was there, was close. Was real.

Ronon swore. “He’s bleeding. We need to get him back to the gate!”

The last thing Evan saw before he fainted was Colonel Sheppard’s crazy hair and concerned frown.

*

  
When Evan opened his eyes, he was lying in the infirmary, clad in soft cotton and covered with more blessedly soft cotton sheets. He knew the heavy lassitude in his limbs. Opiates. His side wasn’t hurting anymore. Around him, machines beeped.

Beckett was tending to a patient across the way.

Evan opened his mouth to speak, but his mouth was dry.

And then someone was holding a cup of blessedly cool water to his lips.

Ronon.

“Hey,” Ronon said.

Once Evan finished drinking, he wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist. “Thanks.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Glad to be back.”

“You were in rough shape when we found you.”

“But you found me.” Evan smiled at him.

And then he remembered - he was on Atlantis. He wasn’t dying anymore. Regs.

He swallowed hard, his smile dimming. “Thank you for finding me.”

Ronon looked at him for a long time. Then he shrugged and said, “You know how Sheppard is. Leave no man behind.”

“Yeah. Sheppard is like that.”

Ronon looked at him for another long moment, then clapped him on the shoulder. 

“Get well soon.” And he stood up, walked out of the infirmary.

Evan watched him go and wanted to call him back, but he knew he couldn’t. He could fall asleep with the warm memory of Ronon’s hand on his skin, so he closed his eyes and let himself rest and was glad that he was alive, that he’d get to see another day - and see Ronon again.


	3. A Living Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the fluff comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Evan Lorne/Ronon Dex, sharing a quiet moment together on a balcony."

“Hey.”  
  
Evan turned, startled. “Ronon. What can I do for you?” He was standing in front of his easel, painting. The oils paints Earthers used to paint were thick, heavy, but versatile if thinned with pungent chemicals. Capable of an incredible range of shades and hues.  
  
Evan was on one of the upper exterior balconies, painting the Lantean sunset. He’d captured the blue of the water, the lavender in the sky, the gentle whiteness of the clouds.  
  
“Nothing,” Ronon said.  
  
Evan frowned, set down his palette and brush.  
  
Ronon reached into his pocket, drew out a folded piece of vellum. “Thought you might want this.”  
  
“Oh? What is it?” But Evan accepted the vellum, unfolded it. His expression turned sober. He smoothed a hand over the various alien scripts that marred the photograph of him in uniform. “What do they say?”  
  
“They’re prices,” Ronon said. “For the bounty on your head.”  
  
“What am I worth?”  
  
“More than all of those prices combined.”  
  
Evan lifted his head sharply, met Ronon’s gaze.  
  
Ronon reached into his pocket, drew out Teyla’s flame-maker. “Wanna do the honors?”  
  
Evan started to nod, then paused. “Where would be safe to burn this?”  
  
Ronon leaned around the doorway to the balcony and scooped up the metal bowl that Dr. Maxwell in chemistry had assured him was fire-safe. He was nothing if not prepared.  
  
Evan smiled. “Wow. You’re just a boy scout today, aren’t you?”  
  
“Boy scout?” Ronon echoed. He’d heard the term bandied about before, usually between Marines, and had the sense that it was derogatory.  
  
“Their motto is  _be prepared.”_  Evan accepted the bowl, stepped around his easel, and placed the bowl on the railing. Then fumbled with Teyla’s flame-maker for a moment, then held it back out to Ronon. “I don’t actually know how to use this.”  
  
Ronon went to accept it from him, paused. Then he wrapped his hand around Evan’s, guided him. “Like this.”  
  
Evan’s eyes widened, and he searched Ronon’s gaze. Whatever he found there made him nod once, briefly, and then he was touching the flame to the corner of the vellum.  
  
Fire licked up the edges, and they curled and blackened.  
  
Evan held onto the vellum until the last possible moment, then dropped the entire thing into the bowl.  
  
He watched it burn, gaze never wavering.  
  
Ronon watched with him, said nothing until the flames finally died.  
  
Evan tipped the ashes over the railing, and the sea breeze caught them, carried them out over the water.  
  
“Thank you,” he said.  
  
“You’re welcome.” Ronon looked down at him. They’d been standing side by side the entire time, shoulders brushing, sharing warmth. “It’s kind of a shame, though.”  
  
Evan looked up at him sharply. “Why?”  
  
“That’s the only picture of you I’ve ever seen.”  
  
Evan huffed. “There are better pictures. And worse ones, too. I had the stupidest haircut when I made major. I look like a tool in the photo from my promotion ceremony.” He tilted his head. “That was your picture?”  
  
Ronon nodded.  
  
“You kept a picture of me.”  
  
Ronon nodded again. His heart started to beat faster.  
  
“You wanted to have a picture of me?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Evan turned to him fully. “I could give you a picture of me, if you really want one. I’ve got a bunch. If you wanted to swing by, you could look through them, choose one for yourself.”  
  
Ronon stepped in closer. “What if I wanted to draw you myself?”  
  
Evan was so still Ronon was afraid he wasn’t breathing.  
  
“Why would you want to do that?”  
  
“Because,” Ronon said, “I heard you. When you were falling asleep in your shelter.”  
  
Evan’s eyes went wide. He started to step back, but Ronon reached out, caught his hand.  
  
Held it.  
  
“I heard you,” Ronon said, “and - me too.”  
  
Evan searched his gaze. “You better not be messing with me.”  
  
“I wouldn’t. Not about something like this.”  
  
“You’re serious.”  
  
“I am.  
  
“You promise.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Okay.” Evan leaned up and kissed him.  
  
Ronon kissed him back, and it felt like coming home.


End file.
